Minister Found Guilty of Kidnapping

While it is good to see that some justice is being done, this is still a tragic story. From the Hartford Courant:

BURLINGTON, Vermont (Reuters) – A Mennonite minister was found guilty on Tuesday of aiding and abetting international kidnapping by helping a woman flee to Nicaragua with her daughter to evade court orders giving visitation rights to her former lesbian partner.

The case has drawn widespread attention as gay rights groups and evangelical Christian groups have taken opposing sides in the legal battle between the two women over Isabella Miller-Jenkins, now 10.

Federal prosecutors say Kenneth Miller of Stuarts Draft, Virginia, helped orchestrate Lisa Miller’s flight to Canada and Nicaragua in 2009 with her daughter out of Christian solidarity with her decision to reject homosexuality and her former partner. The two Millers are not related.

For those who haven’t kept up with the story, Lisa Miller was one part of a lesbian civil union with a woman named Janet Jenkins. Though the union was from Vermont, the two lived in Virginia with their daughter.

Unfortunately, at some point Lisa Miller turned “ex-gay,” dissolved the union and started a custody battle. Jenkins won custody, but then Miller disappeared with their daughter in 2009. They turned up, names changed, in Nicaragua. Now, in the above, it seems that Kenneth Miller has been found guilty of aiding and abetting with that flight from America.

It is a truly ugly situation, and I have to think that it’s the inevitable result of much of the culture war rhetoric that has made anti-homosexuality the centerpiece of American Christianity. Right Wing Watch has been following the developing story for years, including the complicated involvement of the law department at Liberty University. I can only hope that they get some happier new to cover in the near future.